Warrant-less searches exception

Bearing in mind that I recently posted a screed against "warrent-less" searches, I now admit that I once permitted such a search.

It happened about 30 years ago, when I was living in a rented house in the vicinity of Portland, Oregon.

It happened on an autumn night, about 8:30 pm, when I heard a knock on my door.   Not expecting any visitors, I looked through the peephole in my front door  and I saw two uniformed police officers ... one who was standing far away, and partially obscured by the garage which projected past the front porch.

(I highly advise that every exterior door have a peep-hole!)

Since I saw only uniformed officers, I carefully asked (without opening the door) "who are you and what do you want?"

The nearest officer replied: "... (name of town) Police; we received a report that you are holding a young girl here against her will.  We want to come in."

Well, that was interesting.   So I replied: "Okay, give me 30 seconds please".

Then I went back to my sofa and hid the pistol I was holding behind a cushion.

Then I opened the door, and asked who told them that story? 

"Sorry, we cannot reveal the name of the complainant.  May we come in and look for the girl"?

Having been informed that they were only looking for another person, I stood back and allowed them to enter.   I informed them that I was the only one in the house.

Both officers had their hands on their holstered pistols.   I stood back and kept my hands in plain sight.  One officer stayed near me at the front-door alcove while the other officer moved though the front room, into the dining room and kitchen, then, moved down the hallway to look through the bathroom, and both bedrooms.

I yelled out to him "The last door on the left leads to the garage, feel free to walk through it; the light switch is on the right as you enter the garage".
I heard him open that door, and waited while he looked through it.  My car was parked in the garage, but he never asked for the keys to search the car.  But I heard him calling out for "anyone there?"

I kept my hands in plain sight of the officer standing by the front door, didn't put my hands in my pockets, and remained silent.

After a few minutes, the other officer returned to the front room and reported that he didn't find anyone else in the house.

They thanked me for my courtesy, and left.

Guns, Guns, Guns ... but no Captive Princess
At the time I had a very large glass-fronted  gun cabinet (hand-crafted in Blond "Birds Eye" Maple by my father as a Christmas gift a few years ago) displaying several rifles and shotguns in the locked but glass-fronted doors.  There were many handguns in the locked drawers below the rifles.  The officer searching the house never mentioned them to me, and I did not bother trying to carry on a further conversation with the officer who had remained with me in the entryway.

Apparently, they were not concerned by the obvious fact that I was a conspicuous firearms owner.   Since Oregon is a "Free State", there were no silly laws requiring that firearms be registered (nor are any such unconstitutional obscenities allowed today).

After they left, with appropriate apologies, I breathed a sigh of relief .. and a silent prayer of thankfulness that I lived in the Free State of Oregon.

In many other states, the officers might have expressed their disappointment by harassing me about the firearms I owned.
They could have asked me to provide proof of ownership about the guns.
They could have asked to see my Firearms ownership License and checked to see if all firearms were registered and whether I had kept all such licences and registrations current. 
They could have searched my house for non-displayed firearms, and called back to their office and checked to see if I had other firearms which were not registered, or whether all registrations were current.

But they (and I'm proud to announce that they were members of the Hillsboro, Oregon Police Department) stuck to their primary duty, and only checked to see if I had a kidnapped girl held captive, and when they were satisfied that I was the only person on the premises, they returned to their primary duty and went on to pursue other leads.

I never learned whether they found the girl.

But if I had never allowed a warrantless search of my home, who knows what suspicions would have resulted in further harassment by LEOs who were not convinced of the original unwarranted charges of kidnapping and suspicion of such heinous crimes on my behalf.

I hope they did find the girl and I hope that it was only a false report; I never was told, either, whether they found that the story of a missing girl was a fraud, or who reported my name, or why.

There are times when Citizens are obliged to concede our rights, in order to "do right" for the benefit of others.

It's not about "ME"; it's about "all of us".